London bars and shops: new harassment duty from 30 October

From Friday 30 October, an employer in Great Britain must not permit a customer or any other third party to harass one of its staff. On the same day, the existing duty to prevent sexual harassment tightens from "reasonable steps" to "all reasonable steps". Both changes come from the Employment Rights Act 2025, and the regulations that bring them in on 30 October have already been made.

For a bar in Soho, a shop on Oxford Street or a café outside a Tube station, the first change is the one that matters. In those businesses, staff spend most of their shift dealing with people the employer does not employ.

What the law says from 30 October

Section 21 of the Act adds a new rule to the Equality Act 2010: an employer "must not permit a third party to harass" an employee. An employer is treated as permitting it if the harassment happens in the course of the employee's work and the employer "failed to take all reasonable steps to prevent the third party from doing so". A third party is anyone other than the employer and its own employees. Customers and visiting delivery drivers are obvious examples.

This reaches harassment in the Equality Act's full sense, not only sexual harassment. That means unwanted conduct related to a protected characteristic such as age, disability, race, religion or belief or sex, as well as unwanted conduct of a sexual nature.

Section 20 adds one word to the sexual harassment duty that has applied since 26 October 2024. Employers must now take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of their employees, not just reasonable steps.

None of this is entirely new. The Equality Act had a third-party harassment rule until 2013, when it was repealed. It returns on 30 October in a new form.

What it can cost a small employer

When a tribunal upholds a sexual harassment claim and finds the employer also failed in its duty to prevent it, it can add up to 25 per cent to the compensation. That uplift has been in the law since October 2024. From 30 October it is measured against the stricter test.

Staff also have longer to bring a claim. Since 1 October, the time limit for bringing a claim to the Employment Tribunal has been six months rather than three, according to the government's timeline for the reforms.

For a business of eight people the compensation is only part of the cost. There is no HR department to hand a claim to. It lands on the owner, alongside the rota, the stock order and the VAT return.

What "all reasonable steps" means

The Act does not list them. Section 22 gives ministers a power to set out specific steps for preventing sexual harassment in regulations later, and until they do, what is reasonable depends on the business. What a 40-cover restaurant can reasonably do is different from what a national chain can, but both are expected to have thought about it.

The sensible place to start is with the places and hours where your staff deal with the public alone: the late shift, the door, the delivery. Then decide how a member of staff tells you about a customer, who acts on it, and whether you are willing to refuse service to someone who harasses your team. Write down what you decide. A note made in October is worth more than one written after a complaint.

Illustration, not a real business: a café owner in Camden with six staff closes at 10pm. Two baristas work the last shift. She moves the till so neither works alone after 8pm, puts a short note in the staff handbook on how to report a customer, and tells the team she will ban anyone who harasses them. None of it costs much. All of it is evidence that she took steps before anything went wrong.

The paperwork that goes with staff

Most small employers keep this kind of note in the same place as contracts and payroll records. If you are taking on your first member of staff this winter, our first employee guide sets out the costs and the registrations that come with them.

The date is fixed and close. From 30 October, a tribunal looking at a customer who harassed your staff will also look at what you did before they walked in.

About the author

Harvey Dhillon is Founder and CEO of Zmartly, a UK accountancy firm for small businesses. He grew up in West London and began his career in investment banking finance at Barclays, before going full-time on Zmartly in 2020. He is a Chartered Management Accountant (ACMA, CGMA).

Featured photo by Declan Sun on Unsplash.